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Rural poverty approaches, policies & strategies in the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria

Following independence in 1962, Algeria’s agricultural development policy alternated between the search for greater social justice that peaked with the agrarian revolution of the 1970s and the search for efficiency and productivity through different reforms during the 1980s and 1990s. The government implemented largely successful social protection systems, including cash benefits for retirement, disability and survivors’ pensions, health care, and unemployment insurance schemes. The government also provided implicit and explicit consumer price subsidies, family benefits and social assistance programmes. 

When national revenues decreased because of lower international oil prices beginning in the mid 1980s, public investment in rural and agricultural development diminished. Direct government assistance to small farmers and to landless and unemployed people shrank. 

In the late 1990s the government made efforts to boost investments in the agricultural and rural sectors. The targets of the National Agricultural Development Plan (PNDA) of 2000 included farmers and people in rural areas outside the mainstream. In July 2002 the programme sharpened its focus on rural development and it was renamed the National Agricultural and Rural Development Plan (PNDAR). It improved infrastructure such as electrification, irrigation and the supply of drinking water. But the PNDAR’s approach to planning and implementation needed further fine-tuning towards local area development.

The Government of Algeria launched a new Strategy for Sustainable Rural Development (SSRD) in 2004. The new strategy is based on two overarching principles: participation and decentralization. Its main objectives are to:

• combat poverty, marginalization and exclusion and meet growing demands for a better quality of life in rural areas

• promote employment and equality of opportunity through diversification of economic activity

• reverse rural-urban drift

• support measures to preserve the environment

• encourage active participation in territorial planning policies to reduce inequalities and promote better local governance

• boost regional partnership supporting sustainable rural development policies

The new strategy is designed to reduce imports and improve food security by supporting diversification of farm production and by promoting sustainable exploitation of Algeria’s considerable potential for fishing. The strategy also promotes partnerships and involvement of the private sector in taking advantage of abundant opportunities in food processing, conservation technologies and marketing initiatives, and in the areas of transfer of expertise, capacity-building and sharing of knowledge.

To address the issue of rural unemployment, the government is promoting broad-based sustainable economic growth through structural changes in the economy. It is also promoting a range of labour-intensive programmes to create a large number of jobs.

Source: IFAD